How to round out a wonderful trip around Europe? A good Olde English pub. The Rose & Crown on Clay Hill just outside Enfield, near the wonderfully named Hilly Fields Park and Beggars Hollow. This pub dates back to the early 1700's and is linked to the Highway Robber d*** Turpin. He originally worked as a butcher but then found it easier as a horse thief, burglar and highway robber. Some accounts have Sick or his grandparents as landlords of this Inn. d*** Tur...

The Ironbridge is an amazing early example of Social Media. In the 1770's Abraham Darby figured out how to mass produce cast iron much cheaper than anyone else. To advertise his process he built a huge bridge across the River Severn in a deep gorge. The bridge was opened January 1st 1779 and has spanned the River since. Many bridges upstream and downstream were distroyed by floods, the Ironbridge is still standing. It became such an important crossing that a town...

The biggest hill: The Wrekin is a hunk of volcanic material that jutts out of the North Shropshire plain. It isn't and wasn't a volcano, it's volcanic rock moved here by the mystery of time.  It is a very pronounced geological feature, so much so that it spun a number of legends. The main one involves an unhappy giant. The giant was on his way to Shrewsbury with a huge shovel of earth to block the River Severn. He met a cobbler and asked how much further it wa...

One of the reasons we travel is to experience the little differences from place to place. One that is sort of subtle but pretty evident is how to interact with the person at the checkout. A few years ago in England my kids thought I'd gone crazy, we were in M&S or somewhere and I was chatting and joking with the checkout person. As we walked away my kids asked out I knew the checkout person, I replied, no that's just how it's done here. Well that was England,...

Berlin is thriving: I first came to Berlin in March 1990 a few months after the Wall officially came down, however it was still East and West Berlin and East and West Germany. The wall still cut through the city, no one knew what was coming, there was hope and energy and hammers left at the wall, I knocked off a few chunks, and left the hammer for the next person. Now the wall is gone except for a few pieces so we don't forget. There is a line of cobblestones se...